Act I: The Birth of Ideas: The Sun, the Moon and the Seasons 1980

Editor: Arthur Tress’s "Act I: The Birth of Ideas: The Sun, the Moon and the Seasons," a mixed-media collage from 1980… well, it's a bit bewildering, to be honest. I’m struck by its theatrical quality, this sense of performance and artifice. What do you see in this piece? Curator: Ah, Tress. He invites us into his dreams, doesn't he? This work, to me, is a playful investigation of origins. That wink in the moon's face... is that knowing complicity? It's as if he is suggesting that all creation, all drama, begins with a bit of mischievous collaboration. Note how the architectural facade merges theatre and temple, while inside an Asian-style paper fan bursts into flower. Are those flames within its heart, and might it recall ancient astronomical diagrams? Editor: I hadn't thought of it like that, connecting the sun to a flower! Curator: Consider, too, that strange board in the center, seemingly a fortune telling or astrology chart; perhaps even game board. Does it suggest some predetermined, fate-driven mechanism that underpins this creative genesis? Is the artist leading us through a game of symbols here? Or perhaps alluding to theater as merely a staged, symbolic echo of natural cycles? What do you think he hints at by putting ‘Opera’ at the top of the theatre? Editor: Perhaps that our narratives of the Sun, the Moon, the Seasons are nothing but grandiose fictions. Thanks, I get the piece more now! It also looks as if he pieced together existing printed media rather than created all the elements anew. Curator: Precisely! The re-presentation speaks to recycling of archetypes in an artist’s mental ‘staging area.’ Tress's world is far from fixed or literal, inviting the viewer into open speculation about time, memory, artifice and origins!